Considered opinion: Guyana turmoilGuyana at risk: Ethnic politics, oil, Venezuelan opportunism and why it should matter to Washington

On Friday, 21 December, the government of Guyana, a strategically important but often overlooked country, imploded. A member of parliament from a small centrist partner in the governing coalition, supported an opposition no-confidence motion against his own party’s leadership. His move ended the government’s fragile 33-32 majority in the 65 seat National Assembly, setting the stage for new national elections within 90 days. The collapse of the government is the first shot in a destabilizing fight between Guyana’s ethnically Indian and African communities to control the spoils from a tidal wave of oil money as production from the offshore Liza field begins in 2020. To exacerbate the situation, the collapsing socialist regime of neighboring Venezuela continues to assert claims on part of that oil and a third of Guyana’s national territory.

On Friday, 21 December, the government of Guyana, a strategically important but often overlooked country, imploded.

Evan Ellis of the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute writes in Global Americans that Persaud’s defection set in motion far more than fresh elections and a likely change in government. “It is potentially the first shot in a destabilizing fight between Guyana’s ethnically Indian and African communities to control the spoils from a tidal wave of oil money as production from the offshore Liza field begins in 2020,” he writes. “To exacerbate the situation, the collapsing socialist regime of neighboring Venezuela continues to assert claims on part of that oil and a third of Guyana’s national territory.”

Ellis continues by highlighting Guyana’s ethnic politics:

Even before the nation’s independence in 1966, Guyanese politics were shaped by the rivalry between citizens of Indian and African descent. Founding father Cheddi Jagan (of Indo-Guyanese descent) sought to build a pan-national movement, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), including Forbes Burnham and other key figures of Afro-Guyanese descent. A series of political disputes ultimately led Burnham to leave the PPP and found the People’s National Congress (PNC), with mostly Afro-Guyanese membership, with the remainder of the PPP coming to be seen as principally an Indo-Guyanese party.